


Reunion

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for episode 174, a little hopeful, a little sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27012904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Oscar Wilde had been a poetic man, but there had been no poetry in his passing, not that he had ever thought it would be so.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 59





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I wrote in the moment while listening to yesterday's episode. Just... yeah.

Oscar Wilde had been a poetic man, but there had been no poetry in his passing, not that he had ever thought it would be so. One moment he had been alive on an airship about to crash, the next he was looking down at himself in the snow, body bent and bleeding and broken. If there had been pain in the end, or fear, he had no memory of it. He felt fine, actually, at least physically, which was a interesting trick since he no longer had a body. He reaches up to touch his face and his fingers find no trace of the scar which had one graced it.

There’s the sound of boots in the snow and Wilde looks up from the contemplation of his own body just in time to see a look of heartbreak and loss pass over Zolf’s features as he stares down at the body in the snow.

“Zolf….” Wilde reaches out, but Zolf has already begun to move on, to help those who can still be helped, grief shoved aside for the moment. He can’t blame Zolf for that. Wilde is beyond saving after all, and there will be time enough to mourn later. He wishes now that… oh, so many things really. If circumstances had been different… but they hadn’t been, and now there was no more time.

Hamid screams fire into the sky, tears trailing down his face. Wilde glimpses red scales in the snow, but does not walk over to see which two kobolds Hamid mourns. He’s going to miss tea and gossip time with Hamid. Wilde had seen that for what it was, of course, Hamid trying to draw Wilde out of his melancholy and enforced loneliness. Did Hamid know it had helped? That even though it had often left Wilde feeling emotionally drained, he had looked forward to seeing Hamid every afternoon? Wilde hopes he knows.

Azu’s not in Wilde’s line of sight, but he had heard her speak, knew she was alive. No doubt healing those that could be healed. He had not known her long, but she had been a kind and compassionate soul in a world that frankly needed kindness and compassion now more than ever. He hopes whatever happens, the world does not dim the light of her heart.

Cel moves among the survivors, eyes glassy and voice brittle as they help make people comfortable. Wilde imagines all the trouble the two of them could have gotten into, if Cel had had time to teach him alchemy. He would have been awful at it, probably, but he could imagine there would have been a lot of laughter between explosions.

“Give Cel a hug for me,” Wilde says when Zolf returns to his body. “They need it. Azu and Hamid too. Maybe even Earhart, if she doesn’t shoot you first.”

Zolf is so careful with Wilde’s body, so gentle, as if anything could hurt him now. He doesn’t feel the hand that smooths the hair away from his face, or the brief, gentle kiss Zolf places on his forehead, but it warms him all the same as he watches Zolf carry what’s left of him away.

“Wotcher, Wilde,” says a voice from behind him, a voice he hasn’t heard in over a year, except in dreams and memories. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”

Wilde turns around so quickly that he would have fallen in the snow if he had still had a proper body to speak of. Grizzop is standing in front of him, ragged of ear, bright of eye, sharp of tooth, bow slung over one shoulder. The snow around him is melted, revealing grass greener than anything of this world. He stares at Wilde for a long moment, then rolls his eyes, ears twitching.

“I’m not going to climb you like a tree. If you want a hug, you’re going to have to kneel.”

Wilde goes to his knees and then Grizzop is in his arms. The goblin smells like the forest after it rains, like moonlit nights and fresh earth.

“I’m sorry,” Wilde says softly, and feels Grizzop’s claws prick him.

“What for? Not a damn thing you could have done. I went out protecting the pack, protecting _her_. Wouldn’t have traded that for anything.”

“Thank you for that,” Wilde says, and feels Grizzop give a little huff, laughter or annoyance or both.

“As if I could have done anything else,” Grizzop says. He shifts slightly. “Sasha, you want a turn?”

Wilde looks over his shoulder to see Sasha standing next to him, silent as always. She looks a little bit older than when he had last seen her, but not nearly as old as she would have been when she died, wearing the leather jacket she had favored.

“Hey,” Sasha says quietly.

Wilde rises to his feet, Grizzop still in his arms, and is surprised when Sasha closes the distance and wraps her arms around them both, remembering how she didn’t used to like being touched.

“Missed you,” Sasha says. “Missed everyone, really. Just hope that I don’t get to see them again soon, like this, if you know what I mean.”

As awkward and sincere as ever. Wilde can’t help but smile. “I know,” he says. “We got your letter.”

“Good. That’s… that’s good,” Sasha says. “I wanted you all to know I…was okay. Had been okay. It was a good life that I got.” She pulls back slightly and Grizzop slides down out of Wilde’s embrace, moving to stand beside her.

“So… what now?” Wilde asks. “The fields of Elysium, where life is easy and one can do what one loves best?”

“Well, you have to meet the kids,” Sasha says. “Not that they’re _kids_ anymore, some of them lived to be older than I was even.” She looks so proud of that. “Your namesake is especially looking forward to meeting her “Uncle Wilde”. Turned out to be a bit of a poet herself, in between the lock picking and such.”

Wilde finds himself smiling. It’s so much easier now, without the scar. “I can’t wait to meet her. To meet all of them.”

“Right then.” Sasha takes Wilde’s hand. “Grizzop, you coming?”

“The Hunt is eternal,” Grizzop says, his grin sharp as he reaches up for Wilde’s other hand. “It’ll keep.”

Wilde looks past them to the airship, to the people he’s left behind. “Will someone be watching over them?”

“You say that like we haven’t been, or you won’t be.” Grizzop says. “There’s others though. My Lady and _her_ Lady.” He gestures towards Azu. “And they have Hope on their side.”

Wilde looks towards Zolf and for a moment he sees something perched on the dwarf’s shoulder, something with feathers that sings a tune that only Wilde seems to be able to hear.

It will have to be enough. Wilde nods. “All right,” he says softly. “I’m ready.”

The three of them step into what comes next, Wilde humming Hope’s song. He doesn’t see the eagle high above land and turn into a person, doesn’t hear the offer of aid, of resurrection, doesn’t know this is a visit and not eternity. That reunion will be just as sweet as this one, and just as unexpected.

**Author's Note:**

> “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.”-- Emily Dickinson 
> 
> Full disclosure, I wrote this whole fic after pausing the episode like, halfway through, then had to go back and add the last few lines. I've never been happier to have had to make an edit.
> 
> I’m [angel-ascending](http://angel-ascending.tumblr.com) over on Tumblr and [angel_in_ink](http://twitter.com/angel_in_ink) over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
